Balaur
Balaur (formerly known as Diloto) is a contributor and a former troll on TDF. He likes his name sake dinosaur best, though is not a fanboy. He is also known for getting endless praise from other minor contributors, as well as having poor grammar. He's frequently seen in Vs. threads and scientific threads whenever they come up. He sometimes tries to defuse troll situations. Arrival Arrived in June 2009 as Diloto, at this point, his knowledge of dinosaurs was very limited and lacked proper English grammar, due to living in Vietnam. He was convinced about some hyped facts so he argued with many users about them. This caused many users to dislike him. Thus, after a month Diloto left. Silently watching Diloto came back to the forum in August 2009 and found out it was then a battle field. As he had not mastered using English, he could only watch the war progress. After it finally ended, he start posting like usual but then again his lack of English skills drove himself off the forum once more. After nearly two months of absence he came back to check on the forum and found it yet once again in a war, he watched once again but got bored in the middle of the war and left. Left for nearly three months he returned yet once again and amidst Topix War III and he realised this forum was full of wars. He was forced to leave because the forum was packed with trolls. Final Return He returned in early August 2011 and was really surprised by the fact that it was peaceful. His English was slightly better thanks to spending the entire 2010 on improving it. He quickly became friends with Nitrox and some other users and began to contribute once more. He was very fond of the story threads, having considered creating one himself. Contributions on Topix As he was banned from registering because he used real birth date (which was, at the moment, below 13) he finally created his account on a new computer. Days ago he found a dromaeosaurid named Balaur bondoc, a stockier version of his favorite dinosaur, Velociraptor mongoliensis. Thus, he changed his favorite dinosaur and named the account after it. He contributed normally for several months after his arrival, reinforcing his friendship with other users (Such as Dinotrek27 and Mattking) and also establishing himself as one. Despite his difficulty with English, he generally posted on-topic and fairly accurate posts, earning him the praise of many. He also was known to not get involved in flame wars, although when The Second Topix Civil War broke out he did aid the contributors in their fight against the trolls. Following the Civil War, he continued to contribute normally. While there were some period of activity lag, namely in Febuary of 2012, he would always return and continue to contribute. During this time, he also created an account on Imperial Palace (IP). Topix Cold War In March of 2012, when the Topix Cold War began, Balaur was one of many who tried to convince the younger users to not feed the trolls. Despite his best efforts, it was of no use and soon the forum descended into anarchy. Having not been informed of Imperial Palace, he had no choice but to attempt to flame out all the trolls and troll-feeders. By June of 2012, however, he realised it was of no use. As most of the other contributors had departed, he left and began to contribute on Imperial Palace more often. He also did contribute briefly on Paleo Place, were some other users like Mattking were active on, however once it was overrun by spam bots, he left it too. Return to the Forums and Current After the Topix Cold War, Balaur, along with most other Topix contributors fled to Imperial Palace after Topix was flooded with spammers. While he did occasionally post on Topix, he did not make any significant contributions, and his views were in line with most users- Topix couldn't be saved from the spammers. After he began making contributions to IP, in early 2013 he left for reasons unknown. He did later return in late 2013, however, and attempted to revive Topix during this time, while resuming contributing on Imperial Palace. He continues to post on IP as of July 2014, albeit not very often. Category:Contributors Category:Senior contributors